Tag Archives: Shia Hadith Science

Why we shouldn’t take the narrations of Jafar al Sadik or any other Imam from the Books of the Twelver Shiites?

Salam Aleykum,

Since I never got an answer regarding the science of Hadith in the Madhab of Twelver Shiites I thought I’d share what I Know so that we can all Both Sunni and Shii Benefit from it while giving brief translations of the sayings of shii scholars:

According to the Shiite scholars, The Science of Hadith in the Madhab of The Twelvers has never existed nor was it implemented before the 900s Hijri.

I mentioned this briefly with some of the brothers a few days ago and one of them suggested that I make a thread of it.

The reason I believe that there are so many contradictions in Shiasm, which is attested by the fact that the third biggest Shia book is a book that attempts to reconcile these contradictions (Al-Istibsaar), is because there were so many people attributing different things to the Imams of their time from Al-Kufa.

As most of you know, the Kufans were the “companions” of the Imams in Shiasm. In Sunnism, many narrators of the Al-Sadiq and Al-Baqir were the people of Al-Madinah, which makes sense since this is where both Imams lived.

My firm belief is that each Kufan who wanted to have a religious ruling applied chose to attribute it to the Imams of their time instead of making a religious ruling himself and claiming that it is his own opinion. This way, the opinion has more weight. Be aware that Al-Sadiq, during this time, did have Imamah status. This is documented by Ibn Sa’ad in his Tabaqat and it was Al-Mu’alla bin Khunais that spread this view according to the uncles of Al-Sadiq himself.

In any case, due to this, one Kufan would fabricate a tradition, in which he would say that “Al-Sadiq said that Muta’a is halal.” However, another narrator would say, “No, he said that it was haram!” Then, a third narrator would say, “I heard him say that it is mustahab,” and the fourth would claim that it is makrooh, and so on and so forth, with none of these Kufans having ever had the actual chance to meet Al-Sadiq.

Now, in light of these contradicting opinions, the people of Kufa were lost, since we have all these people claiming that they heard these things from the Imams, so who does one choose? So, one day, when one narrator said that he heard Al-Sadiq say that such and such is haram, a smart narrator said, “No, I heard him say that it is halal, and I also heard him say that you are mal’oon!” The other narrator shot back, “That’s funny, because I heard him say that YOU are mal’oon.” Then, a third narrator came and said, “Both of you are mal’oon upon the tongues of Al-Sadiq and Al-Baqir!” And suddenly, everybody in Kufa became mal’oon.

As time progressed, about a century and a half later, Al-Kashshi compiled his book on narrators. Due to the huge amount of disagreements, he included all the narrations. So, when you look into the chapter on Zurarah or Yunus bin Abdulrahman, you will find various attributions that say that so and so is in paradise, then in the next hadith it says that so and so is damned to hell.

Shia scholars were baffled by this and had no way to reconcile this other than to say that this is due to taqiyyah, because there is no way that one can say that the Imams contradicted themselves.

Discuss.

Written by FaridOriginal Article link here. Posted on this blog by 13S2010

Ayatolah Ali Khamenei says in his book ‘Usul al-arba’a fi ilmi Rijal’ pg 50-51: “According to the experts of this art (Ilm Hadith) our Rijaal Books Rijal Najashi, Rijal Kashi, Barqi, Ghadaeri etc have been distorted and displacements have taken place and they have been damaged greatly. The authentic copies/versions of these books have not reached the sons of our generation.”